From what I understand, Dr. Lundy has never force fetched a dog. He goes through a program of mouth conditioning where he sits and has the dog sit in front, facing him and teaches the dog to "take it" and then "drop" - over and over. He starts with a bumper or a stick and goes VERY SLOW with LOTS of repetition as he introduces bumpers and birds. And, once he thinks he has it under control, he continues to work on it for a month or so and returns to this training if he sees any signs of mouthing problems. He also walks his dogs at heel with them carrying bumpers and birds until all of their obedience is very solid. He has never had a hard mouth problem by following this procedure.

I was wondering/curious of the successful Brown Dogs running today and recently,(FT, etc) are there any that also weren't FF??? ie- Canvas, Loppy.....

Don't know of any. And we do it not just to get them to hold the bird, but to learn how to learn, handle correction, deal with not being the boss, etc. The force fetch establishes who is in charge and makes everything easier as a result.

This old post from John is interesting, but he has come a "long way" from Oct. of 2004.

"Gunner" is a testament to that fact and hopefully we will have another Peake running a few field trials in Colorado this summer. And Kenny Trott is helping with the education of both handler and dog.